Listen up, Congress! Americans want massive cuts to legal immigration

A government shutdown is in the rearview mirror, but the outlines of a looming immigration deal remain murky with the sides still far apart — though the latest polling suggests President Trump’s bargaining position may be strong.

A Harvard-Harris poll taken in the run-up to the shutdown found Americans strongly support granting citizenship rights to illegal immigrant Dreamers. But they also back Mr. Trump’s three demands for a border wall, limits to the chain of family migration and an end to the Diversity Visa Lottery.

Most striking of all is the public’s demand for lower overall legal immigration — a position that has little traction on Capitol Hill but one that is overwhelmingly popular across the country.

The poll found that most Americans want annual legal immigration capped at 500,000 a year or less — far lower than the current annual rate of 1.3 million.

Those findings challenge what many lawmakers say is the bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill that while illegal immigration is to be discouraged, high levels of legal immigration are necessary for the nation’s image and its economy.

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That is one of the positions likely to be tested as Congress begins a sprint to find an immigration compromise, potentially by Feb. 8 — the deadline for spending set Monday — but definitely by March 5, which is when Dreamers could begin losing legal protections in large numbers.

“For the first time in five years, we will have a debate on the floor of the Senate on the Dream Act and immigration,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat.

Mr. Durbin has been leading the push for legalization and partnering with Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, on the plan that has drawn the most attention.

The Graham-Durbin outline would grant eventual citizenship rights to the 690,000 Dreamers protected by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and would include more than 1 million others who either didn’t apply for the Obama-era program or who were too old to qualify. The plan would also create legal protections, though not citizenship, for their parents.

The White House said it also is willing to talk about the broader immigrant population and more security and enforcement.

“If they’re willing to do the things we’ve asked to on visa, chain migration, border security, then we’re willing to consider a broader population, but we have not gone there,” Marc Short, the White House’s chief liaison to Congress, told reporters.

On the White House priorities, Mr. Graham and Mr. Durbin called for a 10 percent down payment on the Homeland Security Department’s $18 billion border wall proposal. Mr. Short said the White House needs more of a commitment to make sure future congresses don’t cut the money from the budget.

The Graham-Durbin plan did eliminate the Diversity Visa Lottery but recaptured those 50,000 annual visas and plowed them into a new amnesty program for would-be illegal immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and other countries struck by natural disasters who have been living in the U.S. under special humanitarian protections for years.

Mr. Short said the White House was pleased that Mr. Graham and Mr. Durbin accepted the end of the visa lottery but that the administration does not want those visas used for another program.

That is likely to be a tough sell for Congress, where support for a high level of legal immigration spans both parties.

Indeed, on Monday Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, emerged from a meeting with Mr. Trump to float the idea of using visas from both the lottery and chain migration and pumping them back into the system to reduce backlogs of people waiting to immigrate legally.

“We ought to reward them,” he said.

The public may see the issue differently, according to the Harvard-Harris poll of American adults, taken Jan. 17-19.

The survey asked respondents what level of overall legal immigration they would like to see.

A stunning 35 percent said the level should be fewer than 250,000 a year, while another 19 percent said it should be 250,000 to 500,000. Combined, they make up a majority looking for a cut of at least 50 percent over current annual levels. Another 18 percent said they want to see 500,000 to 1 million.

Just 19 percent of respondents said they want an increase over 1 million.

Mr. Trump hasn’t said recently what legal immigration number he wants to see, but he has been vocal on changing the way the U.S. picks immigrants. He said skills and ability to assimilate in the U.S. should be weighted over extended family ties.

The poll says voters agree by a 79 percent to 21 percent margin.

That is even bigger than the 77 percent to 23 percent margin that supports legalization for Dreamers.

More than 60 percent of voters said current border security is inadequate, and 54 percent said they support “building a combination of physical and electronic barriers across the U.S.-Mexico border.”

That could boost Mr. Trump’s call for a border wall system, which according to a proposal sent to Capitol Hill this month would build or revamp 722 miles of fencing along the border.

DACA itself was created by a Feral Federal Obama Presidential edict, so why is Congress even involved in its demise? Why is the infection of DACA which should have stayed within the corrupted executive branch allowed to divide the rest of the American body politic? If elections have consequences why not Feral Presidential edicts? Let the Executive branch of government that created this mess be burdened with the task of correcting it. Why is Congress or the Supreme courts even involved? Let the party that gave out the pleasure of DACA drugs feel the pains of its withdrawal, not the party that tried to keep the DACA drug out of the veins of the healthy branches of American government and society now divided in hatred and DACA created disunity.. Why do the healthy law abiding Americans have to get their government shut down, their Congressional Houses divided, their government jobs and paychecks put on hold, not to mention more Debt and higher social costs in programs that only those of an illegal mindset want? Let the Supreme Courts throw it all back on the executive branch that created it, and let a sane American loving President kill the deformed political Chucky doll that could have been killed in its cradle or at least stopped in its tracks by voting out Obama back in 2012 before it grew into a full blown plague.

Congressmen and Senators lets not forget to pass the law to END ” birthright citizenship” also. This should have been done years ago, get it done. Passing Kate’s Law is needed more and more everyday. Do your jobs and get it done, NOW.

What is NEEDED to fix that, MadeinAmerica33, is to REPEAL the 14th Amendment. That Amendment was intended SOLELY to grant citizenship to the children born of newly-freed AFRICAN slaves after the Civil War. It was NEVER INTENDED–as the AUTHOR of the Amendment specifically STATED in his writings ABOUT that Amendment–to grant “birthright citizenship” to the children of FOREIGN NATIONALS who happen to be born in the United States. If an illegal sneaks into one of the bathrooms at Yankee Stadium and gives birth there, is the kid automatically granted season tickets for life? NO? Then how can these LOONS argue that we are compelled to grant CITIZENSHIP to that same illicit birth by somebody who sneaked in here EXPRESSLY to drop an “anchor kid” to enable them to stay in the US?

Since “legalizing” the children of freed slaves as citizens after the Civil War was the ONLY reason for the 14th Amendment, and since that reason NO LONGER EXISTS, it is time to REPEAL that Amendment so that LYING COMMUCRATS won’t be tempted to USE IT to justify “anchor babies” and other Leftist LOON perversion of our laws!

Yes!!! I agree with those who want to cut legal immigration but I would go further. Until the borders are under control and those who entered illegally are deported, I say stop ALL immigration. Once the rule of law is established again we could start a merit based limited immigration system.

You may be dreaming, Snowy, but that is REALLY the ONLY action that makes SENSE, since the LYING, scheming COMMUCRATS have made such a MESS of our immigration system in their CONSTANT quest to build themselves a voter base to replace the one they DROVE AWAY with their extreme radical left LOONERY.

There are a whole lot of us American “dreamers” who feel the same way–but you don’t see the damned Commucrats wasting any of their compassionate tears on THOSE “dreamers,” do you!

Trump is talking about a point system, where potential immigrants are scored against each other. Well yeah. Why didn’t we have this all along? Not all discrimination is bad.

We should prioritize:
Those with critical job skills
Those with advanced degrees
Those who speak fluent English
Those between the ages of 20-40

We should strongly exclude:
Those with a criminal record (including previous border crossing)
Can’t speak English at all
Gang affiliation
Chain migration, anchor babies, etc.
No work ethic
Want to re-conquest the USA for Mexico

The lists go on. The point is, if immigrants see preferential treatment, especially for those who speak English, they will be more likely to learn it before coming here.

And IIRC we USED TO DO JUST THAT. Only accepted those who could PROVE THEY COULD LIVE here financially on their own, OR HAD a sponsor.. AND THUS WOULDN’T become a burden to the tax victims. BUT LIBTARDS stopped that.

The Commucrats who are PUSHING this “open borders” crap don’t give a DAMN about the THIRD WORLD illiterates, criminals and TRASH that are POURING into our country. The only thing THEY care about is getting and KEEPING political power over the REST OF US–and they are USING this ALIEN INVASION to get it. Illegals are ALREADY voting in our elections by the MILLIONS, but they CAN’T illegally VOTE if they are NOT HERE. Hence the Commucrats’ CONSTANT efforts to prevent ANY OF THEM being deported, and to cram as many MORE IN as they can get! Because the sad truth is, they don’t give a DAMN about this country or its people, either!

Memo to Commucrats: We are ONTO your little “hide the illegal” game, and we are SICK of being the CASH COWS that are FINANCING this wholesale THIRD WORLD INVASION of our formerly SOVEREIGN nation.

Ituser, I guess they mean that while we are deteriorating into a Third World sh**hole under the weight of MILLIONS of illiterate, unskilled, INDIGENT and DEPENDENT invaders who are LITERALLY sucking the LIFE out of our formerly free and propserous country, we can bask in the glow of approval from those nations who have already bought into the Socialst/Globalist world collective BS about how “compassionate” we are.

Legal immigration is a part of our greatness. However, it must be controlled and adjusted to fit the needs of the nation and not the needs of the Democrats for voters. ILLEGAL immigration is not – and never has been – part of our greatness as a nation. It is a slap in the face to every legal immigrant and spits on the rule of law.

No illegal immigrant should ever be granted citizenship. They need to be deported and barred from ever seeking to legally immigrate to the US (as done by Australia).

Massive immigration into Europe – under the politically correct refugee status – is the death of Western Civilization in Europe. Our “intellectual elites” want to follow the lead of Europe. I put intellectual elites in quotes because they are in reality neither. They a pampered wealthy snobs who went to schools and universities who brainwashed them into this destructive ideology. Despite years of research I do not understand this self defeating logic or it’s desired endstate.

dante2014, you really don’t have to WONDER about the intelligence of an “intellectual elite” that is so EAGER to embrace their OWN destruction by willingly fastening the yoke and chains of the Socialst/Globalist “collective” on their OWN necks and legs! They are flat-out CRAZY, not to mention brainwashed into ABJECT STUPIDITY by an overdose of Leftist indoctrinating “education.”